Clos des Fées

Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Pyrenees, in the Roussillon region, a few kilometers north of Perpignan, lies the cirque de Vingrau. At the foot of its limestone cliffs, in the Agly valley, Hervé Bizeul one day discovered forgotten ancient vines. From this encounter, in 1997, Domaine du Clos des Fées was born. Starting from nothing, the winemaker has succeeded in creating exceptional wines with poetic names, which are now exported all over the world.

Domaine du Clos des Fées: exceptional wines born of their winemaker's ambition

Hervé Bizeul has been a restaurateur, writer and journalist. When he discovered the Agly valley, his passion for wine caught up with him. By the age of 21, he had won the Ruinard trophy for France's Best Young Sommelier. He moved to Vingrau with his wife in 1997 to reinvent himself as a winemaker. He had no money, but big ambitions, even if the Roussillon vineyards were not very highly rated at the time. To produce his first vintage, in 1998, a winemaker friend lent him his cellar. It was here that the young winemaker created Le Clos des Fées, using grapes harvested from his few hectares of land and bunches picked from abandoned vines. It was an immediate success, and the beginnings of a meteoric rise. Thanks to his hard work, courage and patience, the Domaine du Clos des Fées was gradually equipped and expanded, and in just a few years became one of the most prestigious in Roussillon. From the outset of his winegrowing adventure, Hervé Bizeul aimed for excellence: he treated his vines as if they were grands crus, in order to produce the best possible wine. In particular, he has taken care to preserve the biodiversity of his land, and has worked his vines using the "lutte raisonne" method to avoid the use of any chemical products. Harvesting is exclusively manual, and grapes are always picked when ripe. Vinification is rigorous and often daring. This is what enables the Domaine to offer a meticulously crafted range of wines, endowed with great aromatic richness.

Quality wines that reveal the diversity of Roussillon's vineyards

Today, Domaine du Clos des Fées covers thirty hectares, divided into 112 parcels. It comprises seven terroirs (Vingrau, Tautavel, Maury, Calce, Lesquerde, Opoul, Espira de l'Agly) planted with grape varieties such as Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Carignan. The vines benefit from a wide variety of soils and exposures. This variety, typical of the Roussillon vineyards, enables us to develop unique red and white wines, capable of revealing the specific characteristics of the terroirs in which they were born. The Domaine du Clos des Fées boasts an exceptional winegrowing heritage that its owner is determined to develop, even if this requires a great deal of hard work. From the old vines, many of which are over a hundred years old, he creates remarkable wines: Le Clos des Fées, Les Sorcières, Les Vieilles Vignes, De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté, Un faune avec son fifre... The most extraordinary of these is La Petite Sibérie. This rare wine comes from a unique, iron-rich parcel of ancient Grenache vines on which an icy wind blows 200 days a year. Hervé Bizeul takes advantage of the richness of the land to create unusual and surprising wines. Gathered under the protected designations of origin "Côtes du Roussillon" and "Côtes du Roussillon Villages" or, for some of them, under the PGI (Protected Designation of Origin) labels "Pyrénées orientales" and "Côtes catalanes", the wines of Domaine du Clos des Fées are definitely a tribute to their region.